Powder Your Face With Sunshine
by Overnighter
Summary: He wanted to apologize, but he still wanted to kill him a little, too. In the aftermath of The Ties That Bind, Ryan is lost and adrift.


_Powder your face with sunshine/Put on a great big smile/Make up your eyes with laughter/Folks will be laughing with you in a little while/Whistle a tune of gladness/Gloom was never in style_

It should be raining, Ryan thought every morning when he first woke up and tried to clear his throat, and remembered what happened as his still-bruised muscles protested. Rain would fit his mood.

At first, the early-morning fog had fooled him. Those first few nights, when he couldn't sleep -- when the pain and the guilt and the fear and the nightmares all whirled around in his brain like some toxic stew -- he would lurch up in the predawn light, stifling a scream, and see the grey dim blanket of mist and think – finally. But by the time he had made his way slowly from the bed to the bath and back again, the relentless sunshine had burned most of it away, leaving a fresh-scrubbed California morning in its stead.

During those first days he had drifted from room to room like a ghost in that bright sunshine, unable to distract himself in any of his time-tested ways. Hard work, his oldest friend and first defense, was out of the question. With his future in the air, and his body on the mend, Sandy wouldn't let him go for as much as a walk on the beach without an escort, let alone to a job site and back. He had made it through last summer by falling to bed each night, exhausted, beside Theresa and sleeping a dreamless sleep, as he had so many summers before, but without physical labor it was an impossible task.

Sandy and Seth watched him from the corner of their eyes, in what they thought was a stealth manner, every time he entered the big house. He knew he was worrying them, as he went from sitting listlessly in front of the television to picking disinterestedly through the paperbacks on Sandy's bookshelves to sitting silently by the pool, but he didn't know what else to do. He was paralyzed – frozen – and for a while he didn't think he'd ever feel again.

He had never been good at expressing his feelings, but until this summer, it hadn't meant that he hadn't **had** them. He had learned at an early age to keep himself to himself, but in the privacy of his own room, or on his bike or in the shower, he'd allowed himself to acknowledge them, at least. Now, he couldn't trust himself from one minute to the next. He felt anger and pain and guilt and sorrow, sometimes all at once, but it was as though he were watching them through a glass pane, from a distance.

He'd tried to explain to Sandy, who was around all the time, it seemed, working on his case, or Marissa's, or Trey's. Sandy had nodded gravely, and patted him gently on the shoulder, but Ryan had seen the moment of panic flash before his practiced lawyer's gaze shut it down. Sandy's hair was gray around the temples, now, and his eyes were ringed with ashen circles, and when Kirsten called, twice a week for ten minutes, he clung to the telephone with both hands in a white-knuckled grip. Ryan wouldn't try twice. Sandy had enough to worry about.

After a week of sleepless nights, he had suddenly discovered that he couldn't stay out of bed, sleeping until the burning hot summer sun defeated even the quiet luxury of the Cohens' central air-conditioning. When he'd first come to Newport, the thing that he had loved the most about the house – and the pool house in particular – was that it had obviously been designed to work with the landscape, positioned on the cliffside to let the maximum amount of natural light pour through every window. The airy, light-filled rooms had seemed to him the antithesis of Chino – of his mother's gloomy, stifling bungalow. Now, he found himself craving shadows, no more so than when he found himself driven out of his welcoming, unquestioning sleep.

His sudden sloth, however, seemed no less worrying to Sandy and Seth than his restlessness had been, so after a few weeks, he had developed a sort of routine. They let him sleep undisturbed until, more often than not, they had both left the house for the morning. Then, with Sandy's hard-won permission, he dressed and made his way to the beach, where he put on his running shoes and pounded out mile after mile, following the curve of the shore away from the pier, away from Caleb's intimidating mansion, away from prying eyes and whispered comments, until his legs shook and his breath caught and his eyes stung with his own sweat. At that point, miles from home, in one of the protected coves that were private in fact if not in deed, he'd strip off his wet t-shirt and kick off his shoes, and dive into the cool Pacific, fighting against the fierce waves until he came out on the other side, into the gentle swells. There, he would close his eyes and float, unnoticed, until his fingers pruned and his lips turned blue.

He'd never really been one for the ocean – six summers in the Chino Hills community pool did not exactly make him a strong swimmer – but something about the cold salt water on his hot, salty skin called to him this summer. At first, he'd thought it was a perverse effect of his frozen state – his body conspiring to force out the tears he would never let himself cry. But his watering eyes always dried the second he flipped onto his back, and most days, he didn't think about anything at all. Sometimes he'd wonder, idly, about the ending of the new _Legion_; sometimes, he'd have a half-remembered impulse to touch himself, lazily, under the water – an impulse that never occurred to him anywhere else at all these days. But mostly, he just floated, blankly, until he recognized the fine, soft shivers down his back. Then, he'd pick the biggest wave he could find and ride it all the way back into shore.

Most days, he'd take his time walking back, his shoes knotted around his neck, his shirt flung over a shoulder. By the time he caught sight of the path the twisted back up to the Cohens' house, he'd know how his afternoon would go.

About half the time, Seth would be sitting on a rock by the mouth of the path, his knees drawn up under his chin as he read a book or comic in complete absorption. He always seemed to know the exact moment that Ryan could see him, though, and would raise a hand lazily in greeting. Some days, he would be dressed in his board shorts, a cooler dropped into the sand under him, two towels and Ryan's own book placed neatly on top. On those days, they ate the sandwiches that Rosa had packed them, and laid side by side in the sun, reading the afternoon away in – for Seth, at least – uncharacteristic silence.

Ryan wasn't sure how -- or maybe he was -- but Seth always seemed to know when he needed companionship instead of company – when he wanted Seth's warm presence, but not his never-ending babble. He didn't think it was a coincidence, though, that beach days tended to come after he'd seen Marissa at Caleb's mansion, or after the rare day when he'd been left to his own devices by the other Cohen men.

Normally, though, Seth would stand up as he approached, asking, "What's the GP, RA?" and by the time they had reached the pool house, Ryan was swatting him with his sweaty shirt and arguing about what they were going to do for lunch, and Ryan felt almost warm again under the afternoon sun before he went in to stand under a scalding shower.

Sometimes they made lunch, both of them taking turns cooking and cleaning. For as often as Sandy was home, he rarely joined them for lunch, and Rosa was always watching her "stories" in the upstairs study. Ryan never asked Seth about it, but it seemed to be the one time a day – apart from every other time, that was – that they both felt Kirsten's absence with a pang. Rosa kept the house just as sparkling clean as it had always been, and did their laundry and -- if they left them -- their dishes, but Kirsten had always done the shopping, if not the cooking, and Kirsten, it had seemed, was always hovering around the kitchen.

Through his pane of glass, Ryan recognized that his feelings about Kirsten's absence were different from any time his mother had gone before, and he sometimes wanted to tell Seth that he was lucky – even though his mother was a drunk, she was still the classy Newport kind – a woman who remembered to buy pudding cups and pick out cilantro from the hors d'oeuvres, even in her vodka-induced fog – the kind whose absence was a curse and not a blessing.

Instead, he found himself teaching Seth to make grilled-cheese sandwiches, and bacon, and macaroni that did not come out of a box, always cleaning carefully as he went. Both he and Seth had become had become almost pathologically neat this summer – their laundry put away, their dishes put in the dishwasher, at least, so that Rosa never had to do it.

There was a stain on one of the counters, from before, from the beginning of the summer, when they had first tried to cook together, and had made messy BLT's. Ryan could have told Seth that -- unlike a faded pink tomato stain -- old blood turned thick and brown and seeped into every pore, but until this summer that was not information that Seth would have needed to know. So instead he found himself attacking the tiny stain with everything he had – with bleach and an old toothbrush and some baking soda concoction that Seth had discovered on the Internet – and making sure that all the silverware in the dishwasher pointed north. He had a feeling that if Sandy ever overheard them, sitting in the family room and discussing cleaning remedies as though they were plans for the battle of Helms Deep, that more than a flash of panic would be the result. But Ryan kind of liked the idea that they were conspiring together against at least one of their larger problems.

Despite their odd – and shared – compulsion for neatness, Ryan sometimes liked those ordinary days the most of all. After lunch, they'd run a few games, or float in the pool, or watch the Star Wars trilogy with the Spanish-language audio on, with Seth forcing Ryan to provide simultaneous translation. But with the same weird timing that seemed to let him know when Ryan needed a day off, Seth seemed to sense when Ryan was settling comfortably into his isolation. On those days, he'd be waiting in the pool house when Ryan emerged from the shower, wanting lobster at the Crab Shack, or burritos from the stand by the beach, or to ride to the **good** comics store in Long Beach. Usually, Summer would be there for some or part of their outing, and sometimes even Marissa would show, for lunch at least.

Seth was trying to be the perfect brother, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect son. Ryan wondered how that burden fit on his shoulders, knowing how heavy it was after a lifetime of carrying it himself. He knew that Seth was worried about Kirsten and Sandy, and Kirsten-and-Sandy. That he and Summer had "summits" about the state of Ryan and Marissa and Ryan-and-Marissa. That they both thought that sneaking Marissa out of her Julie Cooper-Nichol-mandated house arrest and Ryan out of his self-imposed exile was doing them a favor. Ryan didn't have the heart to tell them that they should have saved themselves the trouble.

Marissa had yet to look him in the eye – not once since that night in Trey's apartment. If Ryan had actually been feeling things, and not just watching everything unfold at a remove, he might have been upset at that. As it was, he just found himself wondering, at the odd moment, what she was more afraid of? Was she worried that she would see a hint of the murderous animal he'd been that night when he'd set off to destroy his brother, or was she worried that some of the evil, the wrong, that seemed to cling to the Atwood DNA would be reflected in his eyes, the only feature he shared with his comatose brother?

He didn't know what to say to her, or how. The frozen fog that engulfed him had removed not only his emotions, but even his ability to identify them. He should thank her for saving his life. He should hate her for trying to kill his brother. He should apologize for having brought Trey and his ruinous impulses into her life. He should hold her, kiss her, fuck her, until she forgot Trey's face and remembered only his above her. For the first time in his life, he had absolutely no idea of how to proceed, and apparently, neither did she. So they sat side by side in a booth at the pier, having parallel conversation with their respective best friends and counted the minutes until they could say goodbye with a dry peck on the cheek.

Those were the most awkward of his days, but they were not, by far, the worst.

The worst days were days like today, when he returned from his run to an empty beach, when Seth and Summer had stolen a moment alone together somewhere, when Rosa was shopping and Sandy was in court, and the house vibrated with silence. If Ryan had been feeling things that summer, he would have recognized the almost physical sensation of relief that flowed through his body when he stepped out of the shower and discovered Seth and Summer thumb-wrestling on the pool house bar, or Rosa in the laundry room with a load of towels to fold, or even Sandy, home early from a client meeting, forcing him to sit on the couch and watch a black and white movie about mockingbirds, or lawyers, or something.

But sometimes when he stepped out of the shower, he was alone. And when he stepped into the big house, his footsteps reverberated on the tile floors. On those days, with no real clear sense of it ahead of time, he'd find himself hunched over his bike and pedaling furiously across the city to HOAG, as if drawn by an invisible hand.

The first few times he'd come, his neck still ringed with bruised and his voice an octave deeper than the norm, the nurses had eyed him warily, coming in to the room to check on them both every few minutes. Now, they simply nodded as he walked by, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

The first few times he'd come, he hadn't known what to say. Well, he still didn't, but the first few times, he hadn't even known how to start. He wanted to apologize, but he still wanted to kill him, a little, too.

It had been odd to see Trey so still at first, laying against the blindingly white sheets, his bandage hidden under the covers, looking like he was simply sleeping off a bad drunk. Like Seth, Trey had always been in motion, never still, and like Ryan, Trey had been a light sleeper – nervous even at rest. Ryan had never really had an opportunity to just stare at his brother before.

The very first time, he had simply asked him why. Of course Trey hadn't answered, but it hadn't stopped Ryan from asking anyway. Why had he hurt Marissa like that, done the one thing he had always told Ryan was worse even than murder? Had he really hated his brother so much that he'd betrayed not only Ryan but himself? Had he always felt like that towards his LB – the younger brother who had once adored him? He knew that Trey had always though Dawn treated Ryan like the golden child, but had he hated him the whole time he'd kept him safe? Besides, Ryan always thought that Dawn tolerated him mostly because he was useful around the house. She'd always liked Trey – when they weren't fighting like cats and dogs. If she had to pick, he was pretty sure that Trey would always win.

If he was really honest – and why would he be – that was the day that the wall had come down, separating him from the chaotic mix of love and hate and anguish that had threatened to shake him apart, alone in the chair at Trey's bedside.

The next time he came, he was better prepared. He brought a book – Seth's copy of "On the Road" – to read aloud, but instead had found himself describing that night in the emergency room. He didn't talk about the way that everything had seemed too loud and too bright, the way that he had feared equally that Trey was dead and alive, the way that he had first seen the cost of choosing his girlfriend over his family. Instead, he told Trey about the woman next to him in the emergency , with a dark bob and shocking pink bangs, who'd threatened to snip off the intern's "danglies" if he touched her broken ribs one more time. When they were kids, they'd created elaborate stories for the unfortunate men and women they saw during their various hospital waits, and Trey's had always been the best – filthy and funny. He wondered what his brother would have done with the fierce Englishwoman and her nervous, intimidatingly large, husband.

After that, his trips, however haphazard, had become easier. He never told the Cohens – or Marissa – where he was going or why – he couldn't explain it to them anymore than he could explain it to himself. He wanted Trey to wake up, to explain himself to Ryan, and to let Ryan tell him why he'd tried to kill him that night. He had always known that Trey was -- on some level -- bad news, but Trey was his whole family now, and he couldn't – quite – leave him behind.

He wanted to, he'd tried, but Trey knew him in a way the Cohens never would, and he knew Trey. In fact, given their precarious childhoods, Trey probably knew more about him that his own mother did, or at least remembered more. That was the part of his brother he couldn't surrender – the part that he couldn't pretend was just a blood tie and nothing more.

He could never tell the Cohens the truth about his past and his family, no matter how much he loved them, no matter how hard he tried. It was a part of his life he kept from them deliberately, not just because of his own instinct for privacy, but because he knew that none of them – not even Sandy, who knew the most and had guessed the rest – could really understand.

They would hear the stories that poured out of him here, in the quiet of the private room the Cohens paid for, and feel shock and pity and sorrow. But they wouldn't hear the truth.

He could tell them -- as he was telling Trey today -- that he'd run out of the kitchen last night when Seth had unloaded three cartons of pre-made lime jell-o, his stomach roiling, because he remembered the night that Trey had tried to teach him how to cook in their kitchen in Chino.

He'd spilled the green syrup down the front of Trey's "Beastie Boys" tee-shirt, and they'd been fighting when Dawn's boyfriend of the moment had come home. Usually, he'd have given them both a beating, but that night, hopped up cheap booze and speedballs, he'd beaten Trey, then forced Trey to beat Ryan, then had beaten Ryan himself for making Trey cry like a baby. And Trey _had_ cried, real tears streaming down his cheeks, his breath hitching with every swing of his belt against Ryan's bare back.

They would hear about that, about the fact that Trey had lost a tooth, and that Ryan had lost so much blood that'd he'd actually passed out in class the next day, and wonder at the stark brutality of it, and maybe even feel sad that at what the Atwood brothers had endured.

But what they wouldn't know is that something in Trey broke that night, and never mended. After that night he was determined to make Ryan hard, to make himself hard. After that night neither Atwood brother had ever cried again – not real tears – and Trey destroyed himself – every last, soft vestige of the boy he'd been – to keep Ryan safe from harm. How could he explain that he hadn't lost Trey that night in his apartment, but that night so long ago? That no matter what Trey did or said or was, he was that way because Ryan had made him that way – by being weaker, younger, quieter, needier – than his brother. By trusting, however innocently, that Trey would keep him from harm.

That was the real key, wasn't it? Ryan and Trey had raised each other – from scrap, from the ashes – and each was the best and the worst of the other. Whatever Sandy had seen in him that day in Chino, Trey had preserved by dint of his considerable force of personality. Whatever was missing from Trey that had allowed him to hurt Marissa had also helped Ryan, and Ryan could never repay that debt. He couldn't ever really define it. Dawn's life was a tidal wave, and Trey was a barrier island that was swept aside by the force of it. Ryan was the shoreline – battered, but still in one piece – bent, but not broken. Trey had taught him the rules, and Trey had broken them. No wonder he couldn't stand to examine what he was feeling too closely.

The sunlight through Trey's window was shining into his eyes – a sure sign that he had nearly stayed too long. If he hurried, he would just make it home ahead of Sandy and Seth. With a sigh, he squeezed Trey's unresponsive hand, as always, just below the superfluous handcuff.

"I'm going to go. We're supposed to grill tonight – Summer and Marissa are coming over. And we're going to see Kirsten tomorrow, for the first time. She sounds a lot better than Mom did that time. Anyway, I'll be back soon."

He never said goodbye – he wouldn't – that was a superstition that Trey had picked up from some old girlfriend. He never said "I love you" either, but that was an old Atwood family trait.

As he peddled home, furiously, against the wind, he thought about the debts he owed that could never be repaid. Trey had saved him. Sandy had saved him. Seth and Kirsten and Marissa – each one owned a piece of Ryan's soul. Most times, he was grateful. Most days, he remembered that most people called that love, but tonight he felt the burden of a life that could never be his alone. Trey had almost died because of him – he had lost everything to save Ryan. Ryan thought again of Sandy's weary eyes and Seth's worried frown, and Marissa's refusal to look him in the eye. He was responsible for that, but no more.

He pulled his bike around the side of the house, noting that both cars were already in the driveway. Seth and Sandy were arguing at the grill, the girls seated in front of the them on the high stools they'd dragged out from the kitchen.

"Hey, where have you been?" Sandy called, waving a spatula in his general direction, "We're grilling!"

Ryan locked his bike up carefully, then looked up, squinting into the sunset, at the four anxious faces in front of him.

"Just took a ride," he said carefully as he waved back tentatively. At even his slight gesture, he saw Sandy and Seth's shoulders relax, saw Summer's smile brighten. He still felt nothing but a dull obligation, but he owed them that and more, he understood at last.

By the time he crossed the patio to the grill, the smile almost reached his eyes.


End file.
